A rigid object in the plane has three degrees of motion freedom, but
it does not follow that a planar manipulator must have three
independently actuated and controlled joints. As previous work has
demonstrated, there are a variety of methods to perform manipulation
tasks using fewer actuators than motion freedoms. The method explored
in this paper is to use a single joint robot to push an object on a
constant speed conveyor belt. This paper summarizes the approach,
previously described in [Akella et al. 95], and extends the approach to
include the problem of orienting polygonal objects without a sensor.